After a pause of two years, IMSC was held in beautiful Melbourne in August 2024.  On the Aspect Analytics front, there were memes aplenty Alice Ly gave an oral presentation about the features of our Weave platform, and Professor Martina Marchetti-Deschmann (TU Wien) presented a multimodal imaging study of human skin.

 “Weave: A software package for integrated spatial multi-omics visualization and data analysis” 

A number of spatial omics technologies that enable molecular analyses directly from tissues, e.g. Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI) for lipids,  Imaging Mass Cytometry (IMC) and multiplexed immunofluorescence (mIF) for proteins, or spatially-resolved transcriptomic assays (ST), have been developed or matured in the past few years. This had led to growing demand for integration across various omics levels. 

In the Imaging Mass Spectrometry: Development/Technology session, Alice discussed the complexities involved in spatial multi-omics data analysis, highlighting the importance of data management, accurate co-registration, and effective communication between multidisciplinary teams. Some use cases were then used to demonstrate how these issues are addressed in our Weave platform.  

 “Spatially resolved analyses reveals significant changes of the N-glycome and transcriptome in aging skin” 

Prof. Marchetti-Deschmann introduced a multimodal imaging workflow to research spatially-resolved senescence-associated changes in the human skin, combining N-glycans by MALDI FTICR MSI, spatial transcriptomics, and more. The study identified N-glycans and transcripts that varied in spatial distribution depending on donor age, as supported by data analysis conducted by Aspect Analytics.